I love director Roland Emmerich. I know most critics hate watching summer blockbusters because they lack “substance.” Me, I go to the movies to escape and be entertained. I don’t want to think or be depressed. 2012 was one of my favorite movies last year and yes I even teared up a bit, yes I know I’m an easy mark. Coming from the man who brought us Independence Day, you would think the SFX would be off the chain, but they aren’t. To make matters worse they use the same stunt/gag four times – it’s the “Oh, no will the plane take off or land before disaster strike.”
There are draw dropping dumb moments in this film. In one a plane couldn’t make an emergency landing in Hawaii because Hawaii was on fire and sinking into the Ocean, the next second it ends up crash landing in China – CHINA! Despite all of that the characters and the story is what sucked me in. John Cusack can do no wrong in my eyes, Amanda Peet didn’t annoy me, Thandie Newton is great as always and I never heard of the lead science gee Chiwetel Ejiofor, but I’d like to see more of him.
Disc Details
- Number of Discs – 1
- Video – 1080P High Definition
- Aspect Ratio – 2.40:1
- Subtitles – English, French
- Audio – English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio,
Previews
- Sony Blu-ray Sizzle Reel
- Armored
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (One of the worst Movie Names EVER)
Features
- Picture in Picture: Roland’s Vision – I love picture in picture commentaries, I find them so much more useful than commentary tracks. I would love it if one of these companies figured out a way to let me export commentary tracks to my iPod and listen to them on the go. That’d be pretty hot.
- Commentary with Writer/Director Roland Emmerich and Co-Writer Harald Kloser
- Alternate Ending (There’s a reason he didn’t use this ending.)
- Other Previews – Angels & Demons, Planet 51, and Did You Hear About The Morgans?
- BD-Live – Usually I hate BD Live, but I like Sony’s implementation of it. The menu is easy to navigate, there are plenty of previews that can be streamed in SD or downloaded in HD – it’d be nice you I could actually instant stream HD – what can I say, the Zune HD marketplace on Xbox 360 has spoiled me. There’s a spotlight section that will take you to various places like Sony’s Fifa Portal – which at the moment doesn’t appear to contain anything. Still, that’s not enough here to justify even launching BD-Live.
- Movie IQ – On the box it says this includes Sony’s Movie IQ but I didn’t see it.
Comments
I love the movie and think the single disc Blu-ray package is pretty nice. The image quality is sharp and clear, reference worthy. I don’t like the aspect ratio at all; it looks very small on my 46-inch screen. The menu navigation is very clean and straight forward, while the extras are decent, not great. I say this all the time, but Blu-ray is Sony’s format so I always expect a lot more bells and whistles for their releases. There is a 2 disc special edition, but Sony only sent me the single disc edition. This Blu-ray would make an excellent rental; I’m not convinced it’s worth a purchase at the Blu-ray premium.
Grades
- Movie – A-
- Video Quality – A
- Audio Quality – A
- Features – B
- Packaging/Presentation – B
Final Overall Grade – B
EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 3.13.2010